


the ground speed of joy

by shellsinsand



Series: the consequences of light [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Drunken Shenanigans, Gen, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-11-08 02:18:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17972588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellsinsand/pseuds/shellsinsand
Summary: a collection of ridiculous nonsense that doesn't fit into the ~plot~ portions of this AU





	1. in which there is (sort of) a birthday

Obito’s twenty second birthday eve ends with him and Rin prying open their third bottle of plum wine while Obito vaguely stir fries vegetables. For two jounin, the knife work on the slices of eggplant is _very_ shoddy. He squints at the pan – when had Rin snuck radishes in there? Why did he even _have_ radishes? Stupid root vegetable.

“Who even celebrates birthday eves?” He points the wooden spoon at Rin. “Who brings _radishes_ to a celebration?” Rin does a stupid little shoulder shimmy from her perch on the counter and nearly loses her grip on the corkscrew.

“Noharas, _obviously_ ,” she says, and doesn’t elaborate on which part she means. Her hair is in a ridiculous bun on the top of her head and she crows, triumphant, when the cork pops out of the bottle. “Ha! Beat that!”

“You,” he says, “are drunk.”

“ _You_ are burning our dinner.” 

“Shit.” So he is. “Brown stuff is flavor,” he says, scraping at the pan. None of it is permanently stuck – that means it’s fine. Rin slides off the counter to come peer over his shoulder.

“That’s black.”

“Shut up,” he says, “Get the rice.” He fishes out a piece of carrot and pops it into his mouth. Blackened vegetables are a thing right? It’s better than everything going all mushy. He takes a swig of wine and frowns at his glass. “Did you pour more wine?”

“I didn’t open this bottle for our ancestors,” Rin says, and dumps a liberal portion of soy sauce into the pan.

“Hey!” He blinks through the steam and what is most definitely a little smoke. “I am the chef here!”

“Sure,” she says, laughing, and steals the spoon out of his hand. Somehow, their sorry mess of vegetables and soy winds up on a giant bowl of rice with two spoons sticking out of it before he can do more than drink reproachfully. She just grins at him.

“I don’t even _like_ radishes,” he sighs, but dutifully grabs the wine bottle and follows her back to the couch. He’s just achieved maximum sprawl, toes tucked under the arm and shoulder propped on two pillows so he can still reach the bowl, when someone bangs on his door. _Hokage’s trusted students get drunken noise complaint from esteemed neighbor_ – Obito can practically see the headline. Rin looks at him wide eyed.

“I’m drunk,” she hisses, shoving at his shoulder.

“So am I!”

“You live here!”

“You opened the third bottle!”

“You opened the second one!”

“You brought _radishes_.”

“I’m asking Sensei to demote you both.” Rin suddenly stops trying to shove him off the couch, which of course means they both go tumbling off of it.

“Ow,” he says, as Rin rolls off of him, blinking. Kakashi’s dumb face comes into focus above him. “Couldn’t you have _knocked_.”

“I did, dumbass.” Oh. True. He giggles – they are so drunk.

“Kakashi! You need wine!” Drunk Rin is magical for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is how she refuses to be stopped. Obito’s still trying to get the world to stabilize in a sitting position by the time Rin has prodded Kakashi down to their level, procured a wine glass for him from somewhere, and retrieved their food from the arm of the couch. Room temperature has definitely not improved the flavor, but it’s hardly the worst thing he’s ever eaten.

“Hey, hey.” He pokes Kakashi’s leg with his foot. “Do you remember the mission with the beetles?”

“Ugh, stoooop,” Rin says, “that shit was fowl.”

“The beetle kebobs?” Kakashi asks all innocent, hiding his smirk behind his glass.

“Yeah, that smelled like –“

“I will write you both up for full physicals!” Rin shouts, waving her spoon. “I am trying to eat.”

“So were we.” Obito cackles as Rin kicks his arm out from under him. Kakashi, smiling, catches him before he can hit the ground (too) hard. The cheap linoleum is cool under his cheek, and he squints up at them. Rin’s doing an exaggerated version of the concerned eyebrows she makes every time Kakashi comes back from an ANBU mission and Kakashi’s rolling his eye in a way Obito knows means they don’t need to be anything but best friends tonight. Kami, he loves them. The weight of it swells up in his chest.

“You guys are my favorite,” he says, soppy, and sniffles a little. Rin coos obnoxiously, bumping her knuckles against his cheek softly.

“Obito looooves us,” she says, grinning. He sticks his tongue out.

“No more wine if you start crying,” Kakashi adds, dry. Speaking of – he struggles upright. Where is his wine?

“Where is my drink?” Rin and Kakashi look at each other, and bust out laughing (well, it’s Kakashi, so it’s more like a _slight_ chuckle.) Obito looks at the mysteriously appearing wine glass in Kakashi’s hand. “You!” He points at Rin. “And you!”

“You,” Rin hiccups between her giggles, “are drunk.” Kakashi looks at her, eyebrow raised, and pours the rest of her wine into his (Obito’s!) glass.

“You’re both morons,” he says, but fondly. Rin scoots over until she can hook her chin on Obito’s shoulder, still laughing.

“You love us,” she says. Kakashi shrugs, whole body, as if to say Kami knows why.

“You remembered my birthday eve,” Obito says, grinning so hard it actually hurts.

“Remembered the hazard you two are,” he mutters, glaring. Still, he barely complains at all when they tackle him into a hug or refuse to sleep anywhere but a giant puppy pile on the floor. That’s basically admitting that he missed them too.

 


	2. in which there is whole lot of mud

“Which one do you want?” In the distance, Naruto shouts as Sasuke tackles him and they both go down in a wave of bog water. Kakashi grunts and digs a storage scroll out of his pocket. “Sasuke is slippery, but Naruto bites.”

“They’re five.”

“ _Wily_ five year olds,” he says, and squints into the sun. The boys are nearly indistinguishable in muddy brown at this distance, but the one who’s yelling is clearly Naruto. He sighs and starts stripping out of his gear, adding it to Kakashi’s pile. “The worst part is we’re going to be in more trouble than they are. It’s going to be all: how could two elite jounin fail to keep two five year olds out of a bog? Why the hell did you take them to a training ground in the first place? Blah, blah, blah.”

“What’s Sensei going to do – throw us back in the swamp?” For how smart Kakashi is, it’s so clear he was an only child sometimes.

“It’s nearly graduation – paperwork and ceremonial nonsense,” he says, and feels Kakashi twitch. Somehow, the boys have managed to acquire sticks large enough to fence with; it’d be hilarious if someone else was in charge. “We could leave them,” he says, rolling up his sleeves.

“It’d be more paperwork,” Kakashi says, dry. “We did the math on you back in Wave.”

“Hey!” He socks him in the shoulder, and ignores the sarcastic way Kakashi mouths ouch. Sasuke’s stick snaps in half and Naruto howls, triumphant, before tripping and falling on his face. Oh good, now they’re back to wrestling. “If there’s blood, I’m blaming you.”

“You can’t lie worth shit,” Kakashi says, and slouches his way out onto the water.

“I _can_ ,” he says, “I just have morals.” He snorts.

“We’re shinobi.”

“And that,” Obito says, jabbing him in the shoulder, “is your problem. No faith in humanity at all.” This is, of course, the moment both of the tiny bog monsters catch sight of them and disappear, laughing and shoving each other, behind a cluster of tall grass. “They’re going to try to ambush us,” he sighs.

“Yep,” Kakashi says, really leaning into the p. (Which definitely started as Rin’s way of laughing at them, but here they are.) He motions Obito in front. “After you, Mr. Optimist.”

“I hate you.” Naruto and Sasuke, because they are five, are both terrible at hiding and don’t have nearly enough mass to knock him over. They don’t have terrible strategy though, waiting until they can fling themselves at the back of his knees. He lets himself buckle, giving his clothes up as a lost cause, and tries to splash Kakashi as much as possible on the way down.


	3. in which rin makes a house call

Rin lets herself into Kakashi’s apartment just after four, swearing mildly as she tries to fumble all three grocery bags into one arm. She only loses two oranges - victory! - and clocks the faint pop of chakra as she shoves the door open. So Sensei had been right. They’ve been doing this long enough that she knows not to rush him, just sets the bags on his table and starts putting the food away methodically. Thankfully, he’d actually remembered to throw out his food pre-mission this time. She’s squinting at a container of wasabi, trying to determine if it’s the one she brought over ages ago or not, when the door to the bedroom slides open.

“Sensei wants to see you in an hour,” she says, distracted, and tries a bit of the paste. Ugh, definitely the paste she brought over.  She tosses it into the bin and turns. Kakashi’s sitting on the table in a sleeveless top and loose pants, lips pursed under his mask. (Four cracked ribs, a laceration running up his left obliques, and he’s favoring his left leg; she won’t have to drag him to the hospital after all.) “Tsk, lose the shirt.” Honestly, you’d think he would have learned by now.

“The neighbors will talk,” he drawls, but it mostly sounds tired. She adds chakra exhaustion to her list.

“I’ll let you keep your pants,” she shoots back, grinning, head halfway in the fridge. She leans back and points at him with a carrot. “Don’t think that means I missed the bruising on your knee.” His sulking gets louder, but when she finally manages to shove everything into the fridge he’s dutifully removed his shirt. The bruising across his ribcage is worse than she’s hoped - spanning most of his right side and disappearing around his back. When she walks over to dig her bandages out of her first aid kit, he tips forward to press his forehead to her shoulder. (100% chakra exhaustion). His neck is a mess of knots when she digs her fingers into it, humming quietly. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, when Kakashi needs an Anchor and when he just wants to be babied. Ironically, ANBU has made him less prickly about both concepts, but he’s still Kakashi – stubborn and allergic to most emotions.

“Hey,” she says, manhandling him back upright when she feels him starting to doze. “Nap after I fix your ribs, idiot.”  

“They’re fine,” he says, more for appearances than anything else. (She used to have to bring Obito for this part, to look sad and sometimes to literally sit on him. Look how they’re grown. Sadly, she knows Sensei is legitimately proud of them.)

“A _manly_ man,” she singsongs, and presses gently at his rib cage. It’s worse than she’d guessed – one is definitely fractured. She pushes chakra into his chest, encouraging the bone to fuse and dissipating some of the inflammation. It’s simple enough to repeat on the three others that are cracked, mending bone and kick starting the surrounding tissue into stabilizing itself.  “Breathe in,” she hears herself say, and the corresponding rush of air into his lungs echoes under her hands; it’s clean. She follows the strain in his body to the knife wound - he’s stitched it, sloppily, already. “I wish you wouldn’t,” she says, and burns out the first hint of an infection. He says something back, but she’s not really listening. The twinge of wrong from his knee is hard to follow over the greedy pull of his chakra coils, so it probably is just bruising then. She gives into the vacuum, pictures pouring tea into ever smaller cups the way her grandma had taught her.

“Rin.” He’s grabbed her wrist, grey eye sharp. “I’m fine.” She can feel the sweat on her brow; her hands are hot. There are stories, at the hospital, about Tsunade transferring enough chakra to put entire units back on their feet during the second war. Rin cannot even _fathom_ it.

“I’m the medical professional,” she says, shooing him back toward his room. “You’re fine when I say you’re fine.”

“I am an adult,” he says, but goes easily enough.

“You’re a teen,” she says, smugly, because Obito had turned twenty last month and now they have a glorious two years of him being the only teenager. “An _infant_.”

“I can murder you in your sleep,” he mutters, but it’s hard to take him seriously when the only part of him visible under his pile of blankets is his hair.

“Sure,” she laughs, and goes to make herself a snack. Waking him up in a half hour is going to be an ordeal, no point in going into it hungry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, because I like to make my life hard, I like to think that when you're actively in ANBU no one is supposed to know about it. You do, however, get two "anchors" (ie: ppl who know) for mental health purposes. Kakashi's are Rin&Obito, but Minato's the Hokage so technically he really has three.


	4. in which, well, it's best not to mention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's unfair that, on top of everything else, Kakashi grows up to be handsome too

Three things happen the summer before Kakashi turns seventeen: he grows four inches, finally stops wearing his jounin vest as a second skin, and Kushina forces him to sit still long enough to give him an actual haircut. None of these things, individually, would give Obito pause. Together, well…he’s not prepared.

They’re sparring, theoretically working on Obito’s chidori, but mostly just seeing who can give the other more bruises when it happens. It’s fun, the kind of lighthearted competition they don’t get to enjoy as often since Team Minato officially disbanded.  One minute, Obito thinks he’s going to deliver a solid hit to Kakashi’s gut, and the next he’s flat on his back. _Dammit._

“Cheat,” he groans, blinking up at the dissipating smoke.

“Shinobi,” Kakashi says, smile lurking around his eyes. The sun catches at his hair and his arms flex as he hauls Obito upright, all obvious muscle in the cutoff shirt he’s wearing. There’s a moment, when they’re shoulder to shoulder and Kakashi’s… everything is _right there_ , where Obito almost swallows his tongue. “Obito?”

“I…” He can feel his stupid face flaming up; a bead of sweat rolls down his spine. “Sorry, just overheated I think. Didn’t hydrate properly this morning.” He scrubs at the back of his neck, can feel himself rambling. “You know me, I never adjust to the summer.” Kakashi is staring at him like he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has! That would explain a lot! “Anyway – I’m just gonna… go home and lay down! I will see you later.”

“Right,” Kakashi says, a tiny furrow between his eyes.  “Did you hit your head?”

“Nope!” His whole face is on fire and Obito is never going to be able to go outside ever again. He’s not worthy of the Uchiha name. “Just need water – bye!” He’d like to say he stays cool and collected and walks away like a totally normal human being. It would be a lie, but hey, he’s a ninja. Lying is basically his profession. He could totally pull it off.

\--

Weirdly enough, Konoha does not fall into crisis just because Obito realizes Kakashi is… well, best not to think about it. Instead, the average citizens of Konoha continue to have a perfectly average Tuesday. Lucky bastards. Obito hasn’t dreamed about being a civilian in a long time, but today it holds some definite appeal. Civilians don’t have to deal with stupid genin teammates. Speaking of… he turns right and ducks into the corner store.

“Is this all?” the bored preteen behind the counter asks, cracking their gum. Obito tries not to die of mortification as he digs out his wallet.

“Yes,” he says, and throws some money at the counter. Buying orange juice and champagne at 10am on a Tuesday morning is normal. In fact, it’s good judgement if you’re going to wake up your teammate four hours after her shift ended and she’s capable of breaking all the bones in your body. The preteen sighs and counts out his change.

“Have a good day,” they say, and Obito flees.

\--

“This is normal,” he says as he jogs up the stairs to Rin’s apartment. Her landlord had repainted all the doors a few weeks ago and it takes him a minute to remember which unit is hers without the giant stain. He bangs on it and shifts the bag to his left hand. “So normal.”

“Someone better be dying!” Rin yells, muffled through the wood, and in a great show of maturity Obito doesn’t yell back _my dignity counts right?_ Instead, he waits until she pulls open the door – hair a mess and in pants that honestly might be his based on the size – and proffers the booze.

“We’re getting drunk,” he says. She squints, eyes flicking from the bag to his face and back.

“You’re lucky it’s too late to kill you,” she grumbles, but lets him inside.

“You are a goddess among morals,” he says, looping her into a half hug, and marching them toward the kitchen. “This is why I brought mimosas.”

Rin’s apartment is, frankly, the size of a shoebox. It comes, however, with more blankets than any one person needs and absolutely no family members, immediate or extended, so it’s Obito’s second favorite place in Konoha. He makes a mimosa in one of her giant tacky mugs (“Even Tsunade Couldn’t Fix Your Stupid”) and collapses onto her futon. She lets him drink it (and a few swigs right out of the bottle) in peace, rummaging through her fridge and emerging with a plum and a bowl of cubed melon.

“So,” she says, sitting cross legged next to him. He groans, theatrically, and drains the rest of his mug.

“It’s stupid,” he says, and pours more champagne into his glass. When he looks up, Rin lifts a brow at him; he adds a splash of juice.

“Okay,” she says, and slurps some of her own mimosa. “That’s not new.”

“Rude,” he says, shoving at her knee. The movement makes his head buzz a little – oops. He probably should have eaten something on his way over here. “Okay.” He breathes out. “I was sparring with Kakashi this morning.”

“Annnnd,” she says, prodding at his leg with her toe. Ugh, _and_.

“And, have…have you noticed he’s gotten…kind of…” He buries his face in his hands. “Hot?”

“Oh thank fuck,” she says, immediately. He jerks his head up and she slaps her hand over her mouth. Neither one of them breathe.

“You,” Obito starts and Rin breaks into laughter, giant peals of it.

“It was like, two weeks ago!” She says, hiccupping. “He was helping me put away groceries and then just!” She waves her arm around, nearly whacking him in the shoulder. “He had arms! And cheekbones! I almost walked into my fridge!”

“I faked heat exhaustion,” he says and then he’s laughing too, nearly crying with it. “I thought I was having a stroke.”

“It’s so _absurd._ It’s like I blinked and suddenly understood what everyone else was talking about,” she says. There’s a beat where they both try to get their breathing under control, snorting into their drinks. “Can you imagine if he actually learns to talk to people?”

“No,” Obito breathes, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Too much power,” she says. Damn right.

“May he never know,” he says, and clinks their mugs together. Too much power indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obito is a disaster!bi and nothing will change my mind on this


End file.
